


Softer, So It Doesn't Hurt

by BelowBedlam



Series: Verity [7]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 00:35:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5476436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelowBedlam/pseuds/BelowBedlam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the way home from a mission,The Chargers decide to get drunk just outside of Skyhold. Kimani is called in to tend to her trashed mercenary captain, because drunk Krem is the Mom Friend ™.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Softer, So It Doesn't Hurt

 

_Maraas-Lok_.

The fire is a burst of dragon’s breath in the center of their debauchery as the Chargers drink and laugh and stumble around it. Bull sits on a log, his bad leg stretched towards the fire and his belly full of alcohol he shouldn’t be drinking. But, the Tal-Vashoth role is no longer a play-act. He’s living the life now. Where at first he hadn’t felt  _enough_ guilt, now he doesn’t have to feel  _any_.

_Maraas shokra_. Eventually, everything is as it should b—

He wants to throw up.

“Whoaa chief!” Krem is in front of him the moment he stands tilted, hilariously close to the fire. “Eye on me, big man. Watch the Vint. Bask in the Vint’s handsome face. Follow the Vint _away from the food and booze_.”

Bull follows Krem. He always does, because Krem thinks he owes Bull his entire life. Maybe he does, but Bull’s just glad there’s someone who can get him to a good place to puke without having to worry too much about getting killed.

Well. Now, there’s two someones. That’s what that means, love.

He really needs to throw up. Krem jumps out of the way as Bull doubles over and relieves his stormy stomach.

“Fuck, Chief.”

_Maraas-lok_  is delicious, fuck what thin-tongued humans have to say when their paper throats burn. It has a taste: tastes like home, and home tastes like  _kasaanda_ , and  _kasaanda_ tastes like the spicy soup he’d had the one time he passed through Rivain. Llomerryn, of course, where no one gave a shit he was the biggest thing in the tavern because he didn’t give a shit about the blackest of black markets aired in the sun like a common bazaar.

Bull doesn’t catch his mistake until he’s head-deep in memory of that loud, colorful Rivaini island. Home. This is the shit that tips him over; home is not home anymore. And, fuck him, he knows this. It’s not new. When he got his new assignment, when they sent him across the _vashedan_  Amaranthine into dry, cold Ferelden, he had a strange feeling he’d not be seeing Par Vollen again.

Bull once assumed Kimani could see the future. Maybe it’s really him. Maybe if he paid attention, he could be breathing magic like his kadan.

That’s a thought _._ Heh. _Maraas-lok_  is dangerous.

“Alright, don’t think there’s anything left, ser.” Krem goes serious when Bull dry heaves, and Bull realizes he’s sunken onto his hands and knees. Good. Get it all out. Clear everything so he can wake up in the morning and maneuver his hangover.

No. Kimani had given him something for that, said her  _nesomni_  was little more than nasty paste to regular folk but that it helped with sleep and hangovers all the same. She’d given him a whole brick of the shit. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to eat the whole brick at once. He doesn’t know where he put the brick.

Krem pushes a tankard of water into his hands, and he throws some of it back, swishing it in his mouth and spitting residue.

“That’s it from me. Taking my ass to bed, Krem. Kremmy Krem. Krem de la…”

His lieutenant groans. “Sleep it off, chief. We’ll be ready to roll when you are.” Krem drags Bull’s arm over his shoulder like it makes any difference. No one’s big enough for Bull to be shouldered on. He’s got his own two feet, though, even if one’s a little creaky.

There it goes, creaking as he lay himself down in his tent. They’re just outside of Skyhold but his tent’s as perfectly pitched as if they were expecting a storm, the boundaries of their camp laid out as though sabotage were actually likely. Habit. Structure, and all.

He groans. The ground feels good. Her bed feels better. She wouldn’t have liked seeing him spill like a net of fish on the dock.

_Big’un._

The Iron Bull is big on focus points. People’s pulses, the corners of their mouths, the way knuckles tighten when they move before they think. The next mission. The tremors before orgasm. Her. But she’s like a cloud of gnats. There is a nucleus. He knows there’s a nucleus. He just can’t fucking find it.

So he keeps looking.

It helps him. Keeps him focused so he doesn’t have to  _think_.

Bull sees sleep as it barrels towards him and sighs contentedly, slipping away as the darkness steadies the wavering ground beneath his aching back.

…

Fucking  _maraas-lok_.

Kimani kisses Bull’s closed eyelid. Then, she kisses his eyepatch, waiting; already he’s overslept for her having slipped into his tent in the middle of the night, drunk or no. She’s still hazy with sleep herself; the only reasons she’s certain that this isn’t a dream is because there are no strings, exposed or otherwise, for her pulling pleasure.

And she’d ridden here in her pajamas. She wouldn’t dream that.

“ _Kadan_ ,” Bull mumbles, slurring. “You’re here.”

“I am,” Kimani says groggily. She pulls a flask of water from her knapsack, shaking it and taking a sip. The mint has diffused well enough in the time since she’d stuffed a handful in, listening to a half-sober Krem explain the situation.

The Chargers, returning from a sweep in Crestwood, had decided camping two miles out from Skyhold to drink was preferable to simply bringing their tired asses home. She’d stared Krem down until he could only grimace weakly, excuses caught in his throat.

Stupid. This is stupid. But, she’d thrown some things in a bag and pulled a cloak over her night shift. Took Krem’s horse, left Krem.

Kimani shifts off of her knees, urging Bull’s head up so she can slide her legs under him. Bull groans at being jostled but sighs as he lay back against her thighs.

“You always smell so good,” he whispers, moaning softly when she strokes his reddened forehead, animated by the small candle she’s lit in the corner of his tent. The skin around his horns is as flushed as his cheeks. Sometimes, Kimani has to just stop and look at him, at all the pieces that put him together, at the thousand faded wounds working together to add and subtract space. He is as much absence as presence; he says words like Seheron, and she hate that she likes the accent that curls around it, the ripple of something that flares his nostrils and curls his lip. Secret, and telling.

She looks at him now and sees clammy gray skin reeking of  _maraas-lok_ , campfire, and sick.

“Here.” She puts the flask to his dry lips and he takes it, gulping greedily. “Too fast.”

_Maraas-lok_  makes him obedient; he drinks slower, opening his mouth when she prods to slip  _nesomni_  onto his tongue. “Eat.”

“Nasty shit,” he murmurs as the hardened chunk softens into paste and he swallows, watching her as she pops a piece into her mouth. Kimani’s so used to the paste that she can focus on the nutmeg, the pinch of sugar, as it cuts the earthy taste of bitter herbs. She probably won’t get much more sleep, now that it’s been broken, but she relaxes reflexively with the taste of  _nesomni_.

“I thought The Iron Bull could hold his drink,” she says, licking her fingers.

“Sometimes his fingers slip.”

“And the Dreamer must rise from her sleep.”

“I’m going to kill Krem,” Bull growls, opening his mouth for Kimani to stuff peppermint leaves between his teeth.

“Nashan would cry,” Kimani yawns, cracking her jaw. She looks around his tent, sees his things all in one corner, nothing undone but the sleeping roll beneath him. They really had pitched camp for a party; outside, Skinner sits sage-like atop a boulder, smoking a pipe and had squinted shiny elvhen eyes at her in way of greeting.  _Missed the fun_  she’d said, dismissing Kimani just as quickly with a shift of her gaze into the trees.

Kimani’s long since decided  _maraas-lok_  was not fun. Sometimes, she swears her tongue’s still rough from the burn of it months ago, when she’d tried her luck post-Corypheus. Ugh.

Bull shifts his head, the length of one horn pressing into her side, and he’s staring at her when she glances down at him.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, blinking slowly, one hand traveling up his own chest in labored drags until she laces her fingers with his to still it. She can’t help it, the compulsion to meld to him. She’d have never expected them to be  _them_ , but now she can’t help it. “Beautiful, beautiful  _kadan_.”

When he says the word she can feel the beat of his heart against her palm as though she were pressed against it.

“So you say, in the dark,” she jokes softly. Bull only tightens his grip on her hand.

“You’re beautiful,” he repeats, lifting his chin as she begins stroking it. “Like relief. Like soft.” He turns, pushing his face into her stomach. “Like clouds.” He rumbles when she rubs the back of his head, and the sound vibrates through her. “Like…like…”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” she teases, beaming at his affections, blushing. He huffs against her, trying to bury himself further and getting caught on his horn against the ground.

“I already  _have_ ,” he whines. “My head is actually killing me. Oh.” Bull hums pleasantly when she reaches down to kiss the top of his head. “That…that might help. Let’s try it again.”

Kimani kisses him again, giggling at the happy trill of his voice.

“Mhmm. That’s definitely working. Once more. In the name of healing.” This time he tries to tilt his head far back enough to catch her lips with his, and fails. When he tries to follow her up, pushing up on his elbows, he visibly pales, swaying into her with a groan. Kimani laughs, clutching him to her.

“You’re still drunk, idiot.”

“I am  _still_  drunk,” he agrees.

“ _Maraas-lok_  is dangerous.”

“Yeah. Yeah. But it’s, it’s…ah…”

Bull doesn’t stutter. Bull has never stuttered. Kimani lets him deflect, opting only to help him up, knees rising under his shoulders until his horn rests in the crook of her neck and his breath is hot against her collarbones. He’s heavy, even as she leans against him to counteract it. His arm over her back, though, is worth it. For a while, they sit like this, a rare configuration; her arms around his shoulders, cradling him close, feet tucked beneath the small of his back. It’s hard to hold a man built like a bear but it is rewarding. Beautiful, like relief.

His lips drag against her skin in what could be kisses but she suspects he drifts a little, unsteady. “Mmph.”

“I brought chocolate,” she whispers into his hair, and he gasps. “And fenberries.”

“ _Cran_ berries.”

“Fuck. Off.”

“Too. Drunk.”

“Aw, poor Big’un. More chocolate for me. And it’s the Antivan kind.”

“ _Fenberries_ ,” Bull hisses, scraping teeth against her collarbone so she squeals. “Fenberries, fenberries, fenberries, I don’t give a shit. Give me the chocolate, woman. Mmmm,” he groans, rocking against her so she nearly topples backwards, laughing. “C h o c o l a t e.”

“Shh! You’ll wake your men.”

“Those useless bastards drank whiskey and fucking  _ale_ ,” Bull sucks his teeth the way she’s taught him. “They should be up and ready to fight three dragons.” He’s found some strength and sits up further, relieving her legs of the weight. His breath smells better, of mint, the wad of leaves tuck far back in his jaw. Kimani brushes her nose against the crooked bridge of his.

“Fuck you, Chief!” Dalish’s voice calls from what sounds like the next tent. “Not you, Inquisitor. Just Chief.”

“Fuck ‘em both,” Skinner calls. “Serves her right for not bringing enough chocolate for the lot of us.”

“Shut the  _fuck up_ ,” Rocky calls laughing. Because, Rocky. “Apologies, Worship.”

But Kimani can’t care. She’s kissing her drunk lover all over, nose and lips and scruffy cheeks, giggling, as he grumbles about insubordination, thankless work, and weak stomachs, even as his own still sloshes with liquid fire.

Like relief. Like soft. Like clouds. Like, like…

 

**Author's Note:**

> Definitions:
> 
> Kasaanda (qunlat): Apparently, a carnivorous plant.
> 
> Maraas shokra (qunlat): ”There is nothing to struggle against.”
> 
> Nesomni (made-up tevene): A mixture of herbs Kimani uses to block herself from dreaming.


End file.
